Sunday, March 6, 2016

Not Far from the Kingdom of God

A sermon preached at Andrews Presbyterian Church on Sunday, March 6, 2016Love God and love your neighbor. It sounds easy, doesn’t it, but we all know
it’s not.

Nora Gallagher, an Episcopal layperson and writer, tells a
story about her experience in a soup kitchen her church ran. (“Our Vulnerability, Born in a Manger,” http://arc.episcopalchurch.org/episcopal-life/Spir1299.html) Initially, the church handed out the soup
through a little window in the church kitchen.
But soon the summer turned to fall and the rainy season, and volunteers
began asking why the homeless couldn’t come in.
There weren’t really any good reasons not to invite them in, so they
did. The men were quiet and orderly,
eating and thanking the volunteers before they left.

She continued her work there, making and distributing soup,
eating with the other volunteers before they opened. Then one day, she looked up and saw a table
with four homeless men, and a volunteer, who was eating with the men. The next week, she decided with fear and
trembling to do the same. She awkwardly
approached a table and sat down, and began an awkward conversation with the men
sitting there.

She was happy to have a conversation starter, and confidently
asked these homeless men if that had seen the game the night before. There was a long silence, and then someone
asked what game she was talking about.
The world series game she replied, less confidently.

Again there was a long silence, and one of them said, “I
don’t really watch tv. I prefer
reading.”

“Or I watch PBS,” another said. “There’s a great series on German
Expressionism on right now.”

Over the days and weeks, Nora continued to sit with these
men, getting to know them. Alan was a
Vietnam vet, and swept the floors every day after the meal was finished. Greg had mental illness, and helped wash
dishes each day.

One day, she arrived dirty after working at home, disheveled
and in sweats, and without checking in, got in line with the others. When she got her soup, the woman serving her
looked at her with pity in her eyes. She
started to explain, then changed her mind, and sat down with her friends.

The boundaries has ceased to matter for Nora Gallagher.

When the scribe asked Jesus about the commandments, he wasn’t
trying to trip Jesus up; he was genuinely curious. When Jesus answers, he responds in a curious
way: by commending Jesus and reciting Torah and Midrash that support what Jesus
says.

He recognizes that laws and ritual and purity and
prejudices and class and ability do not come before the actual person. This was unusual because the scribes had, in
that day, lapsed into legalism – putting laws before people. But this scribe, he knew the difference
between legalism and love.

This is significant when Jesus observes the widow
as she comes to the temple to make her offering. Notice that Jesus does not commend her; he
just observes her and remarks on what she’s doing. In the eyes of the scribes, her act of giving
all she has is laudable because she is keeping the law. But Jesus observes that she has not only
given all she has, but all she has to live on.
She now has no means for survival.

For Jesus, this is a tragedy.
She is not an example of what we should emulate. Rather, she is a case where meeting the
letter of the law has taken precedence over the needs of and care for the
widow. This is not in keeping with what
the commandments say, for the scribes and treasurer have required death instead
of mercy.

In his conversation with the scribe Jesus commends him by
saying, “Truly you are not far from the Kingdom of God.” But the other scribes he condemns.

“38…Beware
of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with
respect in the marketplaces,39 and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of
honor at banquets!40 They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say
long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

When we
sit down at the table with the those who have different views and befriend them
and eat with them, when we welcome a stranger into our midst, particularly one
who is different, we are not far from the Kingdom of God. When love rules instead of law, when we speak
against hate speech masquerading as politics, we are not far from the kingdom
of God. When traditions – “we’ve always”
or “we’ve never” - take a back seat to caring for another, we are not far from
the Kingdom of God.

Andy
Stanley tells a story about his small (150-200 people!) church that is
beautiful. (http://zackhunt.net/2016/03/04/why-i-love-my-small-church/)

There
was a five-month old baby in the church who was sick, who because he was on iv
antibiotics, couldn’t leave the hospital.
He was going to have heart surgery, and his parents wanted to baptize
him beforehand. But he couldn’t leave
the hospital.

Now that
church, like here, has the congregation make promises to the family and the
child during the baptismal liturgy, but the congregation obviously couldn’t all
gather in the hospital room, and most wanted to be there. So the pastor thought outside the box in the
name of love.

Andy writes:

During worship this particular Sunday
morning, the day before the planned heart surgery, our pastor put a picture of
the baby up on the screen in front of the church. He asked everyone who could
to take a picture of the picture with their cell phones.

After the picture was taken, our pastor read
the traditional baptismal liturgy just as he would if the family and their
child had been there in person.

When it came time for the congregation to
respond we responded with our phones, texting the picture we had just taken to
the child’s parents with 2 simple words attached.

“We promise.”

It was an incredibly holy moment where two
worlds collided, the old and the new, to extend the hand of God to a family who
needed His loving touch the most.

Truly, they were not far
from the Kingdom of God in that moment.

When we come to this
table, we come as Nora Gallagher learned to, to eat with those we might not
have chosen to before. We acknowledge
that being part of the body of Christ means forgetting the boundaries that
divide.

When we come to this font,
we demonstrate, as Andy Stanley’s church did that love takes precedence over
law, that our life together is shaped by love.

We when partake in the
sacraments, we are recall that, in love, God has gifted us with ways to know
him and to love him, both in liturgy and in life.

May we, in our, journey
of faith learn to break down the walls that divide us one from another.

May we, as we practice
our faith, learn to value justice over law.

May we, as we try to the
best of our ability to keep the commandments, discover that we cannot do one
without the other; that in loving God we cannot help but serve one another, and
that in serving our neighbors, we cannot help but draw closer to God.